Tyler and the start of his Atlantis adventure! (Week 119)

Ooh, I apologize for the hiatus of blog posts - things have been quite hectic here. I'll be backdating our blog posts from each day of our Bahamas vacation (there's just so much to talk about!), so be patient please. :)

Before we headed out of town, we got a visit from my friend Shirley and her little 3 month old Sharon. She was so tiny - I am SO excited to have a little girl join our family in February!

Another last minute preparation for the trip - Tyler getting a haircut! We need him looking spiffy in the sun. :) He was actually not so great this time around though - it took a lot of coaxing to get him to sit still - but we still managed to get it done.

Tyler, amid his fussing, kept trying to pull off his wrap and finally succeeded. Result? Hair all over his back and neck. It was so itchy for him and he ended up taking off his shirt on the drive home. He was VERY happy to be naked. heehee.

Sunday morning. The START of our vacation! AAHH!! So excited! Will and I had been planning for a quite a while to make sure we didn't forget to pack anything and had all our bases covered. I can't remember the last time we took a week long vacation - it was definitely way before we had Tyler though! We headed to the airport Sunday morning at 3am. Yes - 3am! (Our flight was at 6am). Tyler was excited since I told him we were going to be swimming with fishies and riding an airplane! When we told him we were going to get on an airplane, he said: "at the airport!". ?! Smart baby. :)

We brought our friend Trina with us to help out with Tyler - it was either her or my mom and I knew my mom wasn't going to really enjoy the full splendor that is Atlantis! Tyler and Trina already get along great - and they hit it off immediately! Here they are playing on the escalator at LAX while Will was parking the car in the long term lot.

Here's another shot of Tyler and Trina. Omg - we couldn't have chosen a better nanny for the trip - one of the most common things Tyler said on the trip? "Where's Auntie Trina?" (though it often sounded like "where's aun ina") Obsessed he is!

This is a really blurry picture, but I wanted to put it in so I didn't forget to mention Tyler's new thing this trip: dipping! We had breakfast at the airport and Tyler developed an interest in dipping his hash browns into ketchup. He's actually never been into dipping so it was fun to watch him get all into it. He liked dipping his fries too - which come to think of it, he never really ate fries before either.

Bahamas bound! The first leg of our flight was LAX to MIA. We brought a carseat for Tyler - it worked great since he knew he needed to sit in it and be buckled.

Tyler was great on the flight - he slept for the first few hours...(yippee!)

...and then watched some DVDs on his own personal DVD player. Tyler LOVES his Dora!

Before we knew it, we had arrived in Miami. We got a lot of comments from the people around us that Tyler was GREAT! Also, a young-ish guy sitting in the row behind us stopped Will as we were de-boarding and told him that watching Will interact in such a fatherly way with Tyler really warmed his heart. !? How sweet is that! I've always known how lucky Tyler and I are that Will is such a hands on dad (especially compared to other dads I've seen!), but it's nice to see that others notice also! Here's Tyler pushing his stroller with his Thomas backpack at Miami airport. This stroller was great that we could put all our stuff in it when Tyler wasn't sitting in it.

Anyone with kids knows how unwieldy carseats are to carry. They are such a weird shape. I did some researching on line and got this strap called the Traveling Toddler. It allows you to strap a carseat to the front of a rolling luggage so that your kid can sit in it. Tyler LOVED it! He thought it was so fun and he'd put his arms up like a rollercoaster (even though he hates rollercoasters...) when Will rolled him quick. We got a lot of compliments and "cool!" comments. Best $14.99 I ever spent!

Here's a video of Tyler in his carseat stroller at the airport. He mentions that he didn't like the bumpy ride on the plane!

We stopped for lunch at Nathan's hotdogs (yum!) at the airport as we waited for our connecting flight. This is where the "Where'd Aunt Trina go?" started. Trina went to the bathroom and Tyler got really concerned and was yelling "Auntie Trina, where AREEEE you??" and then when she reappeared, he went running to her with his arms open! Haha! Here they are drawing while we had lunch.

Oooh - getting close to the Bahamas! We had a little plane for our last leg and had to take a little shuttle out onto the runway. Ooh we were so excited!

The flight from Miami to Nassau was less than an hour - and since it was such a small plane we decided to not use the carseat. The plane even had propellers on it! Here's a family picture before we boarded.

Tyler was GREAT on this flight! He had been concerned when we were taking off and landing on the last flight - he didn't like that it was so bumpy and needed to be hugged (while strapped in his carseat). I had my fingers crossed that he would do better this time. And he did! The plane had 2 seats - aisle - 2 seats and Tyler and I sat on one side together. Tyler looked outside while we were taxi-ing, and curled up (while belted of course!) against my lap. As we were taking off, I realized he had fallen asleep! ... and he didn't wake up until we were landing! :)

We're HERE! Customs was a breeze at the Nassau airport and we were met with a shuttle service I had booked ahead of time. Tyler did NOT want to get into the van, and started throwing a tantrum as we pulled out of the spot. Our driver, Cyrus, was great when I asked for him to stop the car so that Will and Tyler could have a moment outside. I learned a long time ago that it's easier to just give Tyler a few minutes of what he wants than to put up with a tantrum for the next half hour! It helped a lot and Tyler calmed down quick. Cyrus was great and told us a lot about the Bahamas history and what was going on with the island's economy. We were so excited - especially getting our first glimpse of the beautiful aquamarine water.

It was kind of overcast that day when we flew in, so the pictures don't do it justice. I was worried about it being scorching hot, and it was a nice surprise to feel it nice and cool. We headed to our 1 bedroom villa at the Harborside Resort at the Atlantis. It was really nice - I can't imagine a week in a hotel room with a toddler - our villa was very spacious and had it's own kitchen! Here's the dining area (washer and dryer behind the white door).

The living room with a queen pull out couch - these pictures actually totally don't show how spacious it was. We took those two little couches and put them facing each other in the bedroom for Tyler's bed - he LOVED it and would refer to it as "my bed!".

Worst picture ever of the bathroom. You can't see the large standing shower, the big tub, or the large closet. What was nice was that there was another part of the bathroom, separated by a sliding door, that had another sink and vanity area. Perfect for some privacy for us and Trina!

It was nice getting settled in and unpacking all of our stuff. We brought a whole luggage full of food so that we could avoid eating out for every meal. Saved us a lot of money since food is notoriously pricey in the Bahamas! Then we headed out to check out the rest of Atlantis. It was dark already but we were still amazed at how fancy the resort is! This dark photo is at the Royal Towers, in front of their flying horse fountain.

Tyler loves his Auntie Trina! :)

Back in the hotel, Tyler was LOVING the giant tub! He's usually pretty anti-bath, but he loved kicking around and playing in the tub. Makes me want a big tub at home!

Here he is practicing his kicking for playing in the water. It took forever to get him out!

Here's a video of Tyler playing/splashing around in the water!

That night we had dinner at The Point at Harborside. It was nice sitting next to the water for our first meal (even though it was dark!).

Here's a shot of Harborside at night. I really liked that we stayed here and not in the main Towers at Atlantis. The shuttles came constantly to take us to each of the towers, but it was nice and quiet at Harborside. I am so all about timeshares from now on!

We even checked out The Dig aquarium that night at the Royal Towers. We walked through twice a day every day we were there - it really is amazing and huge!

Here's a cute video of Tyler attempting to count the fish...

Look how huge this fish (grouper) is! This was just one of their many aquariums, and each time we were still awed. This is also where the huge manta rays were - totally straight out of Finding Nemo - the school teacher manta ray. HUGE!

Ok seriously, the grouper were just too huge. Here's a family picture.

Trina liked the groupers too!

Tyler loved looking at the fish - especially the starfish and nemo clownfish.

Yay Tyler! We were really excited about the fun we were going to be having this week!

Here we are near the casino - an example of how luxurius the place is! Darn casino - took my money! Darn Wheel of Fortune!

Whew - end of day 1 of the trip. It was a long day of traveling, but Tyler was great - and that was my biggest worry for the entire trip! The 3 hour time difference worked great for us too - we put Tyler down later at night, and woke up at 3 hours later than normal - we meant we all got to sleep in - YAY! Stay tuned for all the details of our water play!